Category Archives: Libertarianism

"Second Wave" Libertarianism is Leftist Infiltration with Chris Cantwell

By: Richard Heathen

Originally posted here:
"Second Wave" Libertarianism is Leftist Infiltration with Chris Cantwell - Video

Libertarianism speech

By: j.t. German

Excerpt from:
Libertarianism speech - Video

CPAC Poll Shows Conservatives Shifting Toward Libertarianism
The straw poll numbers from this past week #39;s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) show that the Republican party #39;s ideals are shifting more toward...

By: News Talk Florida

Originally posted here:
CPAC Poll Shows Conservatives Shifting Toward Libertarianism - Video

Victor Pickard celebrated the Federal Communication Commissions vote Thursday to regulate the internet as a public utility at an internet victory party in Washington, DC. For Pickard, an assistant professor at the Annenberg School of Communications, and an expert on global media activism, the decision is a win for the public good, and maybe even the future of journalismtwo concerns that are very much on his mind as he sits down to write his next book.

Even though its still in its earliest stages, the book will stand on the shoulders of Pickards most recent work, Americas Battle For Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform, which he is currently on tour promoting. A slim, fast-paced account, it digs into a series of media policy battles that played out in the 1940s, when government and media activists fought to rein in powerful broadcasters and to articulate a role for radio and newspapers that served the public good, as opposed to commercial interests.

Their vision might have succeeded, were it not for Cold War paranoia, and an interpretation of freedom of speech that favored the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals. By the time the smoke had cleared, antitrust action had split NBC into two, but the efforts to make the news more local and less commercial were largely defeated. To Pickard, this failure to unhook the news from commercial pressures, and the subsequent triumph of corporate libertarianism, was a critical juncture in journalism that shaped the course of its future.

Now, while the impact of the FCCs ruling remains uncertain, and native advertising colonizes the Web, journalism has arrived at another critical juncture. As policy makers seek to define the public interest in a digital age, Pickards body of scholarship may provide a useful, if controversial, road map to our current media environment. As he sees it, technology has changed, but the concerns of the 1940saccess, sustainable business models for the news, and the role of regulationwill be central to maximizing the democratic potential of the web, and nurturing the future of public service journalism.

I spoke with Pickard by phone. Our conversation has been lightly edited and abridged.

Your previous book argues that the commercial internet faces a norm-defining moment similar to that of commercial radio in the 1940s. How so? What is at stake?

In the 1940s, as a society, we were asking big, normative questions about what the role of media should be in a democratic society. Questions that sought to define a kind of social contract between media institutions, the public, and the government. That asked whether it was healthy to have a news media system so dependent on the market, or whether we should be creating structural alternatives. I think were facing a similar crossroads for determining whether our new mediaor newish mediawill become captured by commercial interests, or whether they are able to serve a higher democratic purpose.

So those earlier battles to keep the airwaves free of corporate monopolies, and the moral concerns about ads invading the news, are being repeated today?

Yes, and net neutrality is kind of exhibit A. If we preserve net neutrality protections, our internet will develop one way. If we lose those protections our internet will develop in a very different way. So were certainly in a pivotal moment.

How do native ads fit in? Whats your take on them?

Excerpt from:
Victor Pickard on native ads and the new journalism economy

Ilyas post about recent libertarian books of interest raised the question in the comments of what makes someone a libertarian. I doubt any two libertarians agree on the exact boundaries of libertarianism, but hows this for a working definition: A libertarian is someone who generally opposes government interference with and regulation of civil society, even when the result of such government action would be to clamp down on things the individual in question personally dislikes, finds offensive, or morally disapproves of.

Thus, for example, a libertarian who hates smoking opposes smoking bans in private restaurants, a libertarian who thinks homosexual sodomy is immoral nevertheless opposes sodomy laws, a libertarian who finds certain forms of hate speech offensive still opposes hate speech laws, a libertarian who believes in eating natural foods opposes bans or special taxes on processed foods, and a libertarian who thinks that all employers should pay a living wage nevertheless opposes living wage legislation. It doesnt matter whether the libertarian holds these positions because he believes in natural rights, for utilitarian reasons, or because he thinks God wants us to live in a libertarian society.

David Bernstein is the George Mason University Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, VA. He is the author of Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform (2011); You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws (2003);

View post:
Volokh Conspiracy: Hows this for a working definition of a libertarian?

On Tuesday, Alaska became the first red state to legalize the smoking, growing, and owning of small amounts of marijuana, bringing the decriminalization movement to a conservative stronghold.

The frontier state narrowly approved the measure last fall, by 53 percent, joining Colorado and Washington states in legalizing recreational use.

Under the law,adults 21 and older may possess up to anounce of potandgrow as many as six plants. But smoking in public and buying and selling the drug remains illegal, which makes it difficult to (legally) acquire.

"You can still give people marijuana, but you can't buy it or even barter for it," Alaska Public Media's Alexandra Gutierrez reports. "So, it's a pretty legally awkward spot. That probably won't stop people from acquiring it, though."

Alaska is the third state to legalize recreational marijuana after Colorado and Washington. Oregon and Washington, DC, are expected to follow later this year. But Alaska is unique in that it is the first solidly red state to legalize the drug.

Why did a conservative state take a decidedly liberal position on marijuana?

Although it is a Republican stronghold, Alaskans are known for their rugged individualism and libertarianism.

"This is a conservative state, but it's a state with a heavy libertarian streak," Bickford said. "People here generally want to be left alone and really don't think the government is the solution to their problems," Taylor Bickford, a spokesperson for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Alaska, told Vox News.

And it turns out Alaska has always been on the forefront of pot legalization. It was one of the first states to decriminalize marijuana in 1975, and voters in 1998 legalized the drug for medicinal purposes, according to the site.

This time, an unlikely coalition of libertarians, individualists and small-government minded Republicans helped legalize recreational marijuana last fall.

Read the original post:
Why conservative Alaska legalized marijuana. Who's next? (+video)

A number of new books on libertarianism and related issues have come out recently or should be in print soon. If you are interested in libertarianism, these books may well be of interest to you.

I. David Boazs The Libertarian Mind.

Perhaps the one with the broadest appeal is The Libertarian Mind, by David Boaz of the Cato Institute. It is the best recent introduction to libertarianism for a popular audience. Boaz does an excellent job of surveying both the history of libertarianism and libertarian positions on a variety of modern political issues. He is especially good on noneconomic issues that many people with only a passing knowledge of libertarian thought dont normally associate with the movement. For example, he emphasizes that libertarian thinkers were calling for the abolition of anti-sodomy laws, the War on Drugs, and other pernicious social regulations long before these became mainstream positions elsewhere on the political spectrum. In the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries, they were among the first to advocate the abolition of slavery and laws banning married women from owning property and women in general from entering into various professions. Boaz also does a good job of raising and addressing a variety of standard objections to libertarian ideas that are traditional advanced by critics (particularly mainstream liberals and conservatives in the United States). For example, one chapter has a strong discussion of how civil society efforts are much more successful at caring for the poor than advocates of large welfare states generally assume.

In part because of the books broad scope, there are places where it glosses over important issues. For example, Boaz only briefly mentions the problem of political ignorance, which in my view is a much more central element of the case for limiting the power of democratic governments than his analysis suggests. The book also includes very little discussion of internal disagreements among libertarians, such as that between utilitarians libertarians and advocates of natural rights, the longstanding debate between majority who advocate tightly limited government and the minority who advocate anarchism. Similarly, Boaz assumes with relatively little argument that a highly dovish foreign policy is the right approach for libertarians; that is indeed the dominant view among American libertarians today, but it is far from the only one, either today or historically.

Despite a few limitations like these, this is an extremely valuable contribution to the public debate. As an introduction to libertarian ideas, I think it can be usefully paired with British political scientist Mark Penningtons 2011 book Robust Political Economy, which outlines the libertarian take on several major public policy issues in greater social scientific depth, and also devotes more attention to countries outside the United States.

II. Jacob Levy, Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom.

McGill political theorist Jacob Levys Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom is a great overview of a longstanding issue in libertarian thought (and liberal thought more generally): the appropriate role of intermediate groups such as religious organizations, voluntary associations, and organized ethnic groups. While such groups can enhance individual liberty, they can also undermine it. As Levy shows, for centuries liberal thinkers have been divided between those who claimed that intermediate groups should have wide autonomy to organize themselves as they see fit, and those who argue that the state must tightly regulate them, lest they become a threat to individual freedom. We see this today, for example, in debates between those who argue that traditional religious groups should have wide autonomy, and those who fear that extending such autonomy to ,e.g., fundamentalist Muslims and Christians, would lead to subordination of women and other injustices. Levy effectively traces this longstanding debate back to the origins of liberal thought in the early through the Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions, nineteenth century thinkers like de Tocqueville and Mill, and on to the present day.

Levys normative chapters are a bit less strong than the historical ones. He argues that neither pure freedom of association nor complete homogenization of groups to eliminate illiberal tendencies is defensible. Thus, he concludes that the tension between group pluralism and the possible need for centralized control of these groups in order to protect individuals cant be completely eradicated. This is true as far as it goes; like Levy, I am skeptical that any rights should be absolutely inviolable, regardless of circumstances. But I think he tends to underrate the case for strong (even if not completely unlimited) freedom of association and the ways in which competition between groups can give individuals a wide range of options and mitigate abuses, even without extensive government intervention. Be that as it may, this book is a must-read for both libertarians and others interested in debates over freedom of association.

III. Brennan and Jaworskis Markets Without Limits.

Finally, I very much look forward to Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworskis book Markets Without Limits. Despite the title, the authors dont claim that markets should be literally without limits, in the sense that any and all possible commercial transactions are morally defensible. Rather, as the authors put it, they argue that [i]f you may do it for free, you may do it for money. For example, if it is permissible to donate organs, it should also be permissible to sell them in organ markets. On the other hand, it is wrong for a hit man to commit murder for profit, because committing murder is wrong regardless of whether he gets paid for it or not.

See original here:
Volokh Conspiracy: Some important new books on libertarianism

On Tuesday, Alaska became the first red state to legalize the smoking, growing, and owning of small amounts of marijuana, bringing the decriminalization movement to a conservative stronghold.

The frontier state narrowly approved the measure last fall, by 53 percent, joining Colorado and Washington states in legalizing recreational use.

Under the law,adults 21 and older may possess up to anounce of potandgrow as many as six plants. But smoking in public and buying and selling the drug remains illegal, which makes it difficult to (legally) acquire.

"You can still give people marijuana, but you can't buy it or even barter for it," Alaska Public Media's Alexandra Gutierrez reports. "So, it's a pretty legally awkward spot. That probably won't stop people from acquiring it, though."

Alaska is the third state to legalize recreational marijuana after Colorado and Washington. Oregon and Washington, DC, are expected to follow later this year. But Alaska is unique in that it is the first solidly red state to legalize the drug.

Why did a conservative state take a decidedly liberal position on marijuana?

Although it is a Republican stronghold, Alaskans are known for their rugged individualism and libertarianism.

"This is a conservative state, but it's a state with a heavy libertarian streak," Bickford said. "People here generally want to be left alone and really don't think the government is the solution to their problems," Taylor Bickford, a spokesperson for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Alaska, told Vox News.

And it turns out Alaska has always been on the forefront of pot legalization. It was one of the first states to decriminalize marijuana in 1975, and voters in 1998 legalized the drug for medicinal purposes, according to the site.

This time, an unlikely coalition of libertarians, individualists and small-government minded Republicans helped legalize recreational marijuana last fall.

Read the original post:
Why conservative Alaska legalized marijuana. Who's next?

Excursions, Ep. 30: Neoconservatism Versus Libertarianism, Part 3
George H. Smith explores the ideas of Irving Kristol and Robert Bork on culture. He begins with a discussion of the anti-jazz crusade of the 1920s. Read this...

By: Libertarianism.org

View original post here:
Excursions, Ep. 30: Neoconservatism Versus Libertarianism, Part 3 - Video

Libertarianism in America
Learn more about The Libertarian Mind at http://books.simonandschuster.com/Libertarian-Mind/David-Boaz/9781476752846?mcd=vd_youtube_book David Boaz, EVP of the Cato Institute, introduces ...

By: Simon Schuster

More here:
Libertarianism in America - Video